Frozen Hearts, Burning Minds
by godfreyraphael
Summary: Revenge is a dish best served cold, except when it's served burning hot. Arendelle wasn't the only country plunged into winter by Elsa's ice powers, and ten years later, a wounded nation seeks its revenge on the Ice Queen. Rated T in advance for depictions of wars and battles.
1. Prologue: The New Century

A/N: I cannot explain how I came up with this. I guess it happened because for some reason I watched _Frozen_ and then _White House Down_ one after the other. Heck, I don't even know where I'm going to go with this. All I know is that I came up with this idea, and now I'm going to work on it, build upon it, expand it until it all finally makes sense. I know how certain scenes are going to play out, how certain characters do certain stuff and that sort of thing. My only problem now is to connect all of those into one cohesive story. What can I say? My mind is full of stuff that needs to be taken out through writing. Not a bad deal if you ask me. And now, without further ado, I present to you _Frozen Hearts, Burning Minds_ , Godfrey Raphael's addition to the _Frozen_ fanon. As always, enjoy it, if you dare. – GR

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When the continent entered into the 19th century, it was at war. The Hanseatic League, once one of the richest and most powerful nations in the continent, had been on a steady decline ever since it lost access to vital trade routes and merchant ports to the new great powers on the continent, Corona, Alba, and Avalor. The Hansa also lost many of its natural resources when it was forced to grant independence to the nation now known as Drusselstein. It resulted in the Hanseatic economy falling perilously close to bankruptcy, and for the first time since its inception, the Hansa had to suffer the indignity of having to import almost every resource that it needed from the now independent Drusselstein, as well as its old rivals Corona and Avalor. It was only through shrewd management and a large stock of gold and bullion in their treasury from the old days that the Hansa didn't go under, but as the years went on and new leaders took over the Hansa, the league's new leadership decided that there was only one way to haul their nation out of its doldrums.

And so the Hansa declared war on Drusselstein. Drusselstein's army was woefully unprepared to wage war, being composed of conscripts levied only on the eve of the declaration of war, but the same could be said for the Hanseatic Army, which had been left severely underfunded due the national state of near bankruptcy. But the Hansa held an advantage in the form of foreign officers, practically mercenaries, who were allowed to train the Hanseatic troops in exchange for gold and a larger percentage of the booty acquired in the coming war than was usually given to officers. The Hanseatics also struck first, allowing them to win a string of victories as they steamrolled through the Drusselsteiner Army, and the Hanseatics found themselves knocking on the door of Drusselstein's capital Teeneruusberg after only two months on the warpath.

Then Corona joined the war on Drusselstein's side. Corona had guaranteed the independence of Drusselstein after the latter's secession from the Hansa, meaning that the former now had to do anything and everything in its power to prevent any country (but especially the Hanseatic League) from conquering and annexing Drusselstein. And because Corona had joined the war, Corona's allies like Alba, Weselton, the Southern Isles, and even the tiny northern kingdom of Arendelle were dragged into the war as well. The Hanseatics, not wanting to be overwhelmed, called in their own allies in the form of the Polska-Vilno Commonwealth, the Osterlich-Ungarn Empire, and the Tsardom of Muscovia. Thus the war, now known as the War of the Double Alliance, engulfed the continent and plunged it into darkness, despair, and destruction.

The war had been declared in 1799. Now twenty-two years have passed, and the Hanseatic Army had finally been driven away from Teeneruusberg by a combined army from Drusselstein, Corona, Alba, and Weselton. However, the battles to drive the Hansa out of Drusselstein had exhausted the armies of both coalitions, meaning that said armies were no longer that interested in venturing further out of their country's borders. The exhaustion of their armies forced the leaders of the belligerent sides to negotiate a peace treaty. Corona, the Hansa, and the Osterlich-Ungarn Empire, whose armies had engaged in the lion's share of the battles for the majority of the war, and their leaders held negotiations in the Hanseatic city of Stettin in order to forge a peace treaty that would finally put an end to the warring on the continent. The peace that they negotiated was _status quo ante bellum_ : no one would gain or lose any territory at the end of the conflict. Everything would go back to the way it was before. Everything would be as it was before the declaration of war in 1799. But because communications back in the day were much slower, the news of the brokered peace treaty took weeks to reach not only the nations involved in the war but also those men who were still fighting even when the war was already supposed to be over, and by the time the news did reach those on the frontlines, it came at a time when some of the armies had already rekindled their desire to fight.

The border between Drusselstein and the Hansa was a vast grassy plain bordered to the north by the sea and dense forests to the south. Twenty-two years ago, this plain was the site of the very first battle between the Hansa and Drusselstein. After sixteen hours of brutal fighting in a smoke-obscured battlefield where the line formations of the two armies eventually descended into bloody hand-to-hand fighting reminiscent of medieval times, ten thousand men from both sides lay dead or dying on the fields, and the shores of the sea had turned red with all the spilled blood.

Gottfried Neuer was a soldier for the Hanseatic Army, but he hadn't even been born yet when the Hansa and Drusselstein fought the Battle of the Plains of the Merchants. His father had fought in the battle, and he had survived to tell the tale to Gottfried, and now it was Gottfried's turn to fight for his country. Gottfried had already marched across the plains as part of an army twice, first when the Hansa had sent reinforcements to the besiegers of Teeneruusberg, and then when the Hanseatic Army had been forced to retreat back to their own territory by the Corona-led Grand Army of the Coalition. And then when word of the Treaty of Stettin putting an end to the War of the Double Alliance had finally filtered through to the troops guarding the Hanseatic border, Gottfried had then been ordered across the plain and into Drusselstein by himself to inform the Drusselsteiners of the end of the war.

Gottfried had been sent out to the border with a copy of the treaty, more specifically its most pertinent points about the end of the war, and an unloaded musket with a tattered and muddied white handkerchief tied to its ramrod. Gottfried Neuer had never once had to wave the white flag of surrender before, but now he had to do it, or else the Drusselsteiner soldiers would have shot him on sight. Not that he need to have worried, because on his way to the Drusselsteiner army camps, he came across a Drusselsteiner soldier who had been given the exact same orders that Gottfried had: inform the Hanseatic soldiers of the peace negotiated at Stettin. For both Gottfried and the Drusselsteiner, this was enough proof that the treaty was real and not some clever ploy by the other side to lure the armies into another battle.

That had been three days ago. As a soldier, Gottfried had learned how to march for miles and miles without stopping for food or rest. But that was in wartime, and now Gottfried knew that peace had returned to the continent. He had brought rations with him, of course, and he had accepted the portion of his rations that the Drusselsteiner messenger had offered him (and Gottfried had reciprocated the gesture as a sign of good faith), and Gottfried now found that his feet and legs were aching and protesting every single step that he made in his boots. Coming from a long line of shoemakers, Gottfried had managed to modify the standard boots that the army had given him upon his conscription so that they would fit him like a glove, and that they would fit his feet and his feet only, so he knew that the boots themselves had nothing to do with his feet and legs' complaints. And since the war was now officially over anyway, Gottfried decided to take a short break from all the walking and sat down on a large boulder at the edge of the plain.

His rock gave Gottfried a good view of the plain, of the battlefield where his own father had gone through a baptism of fire along with the rest of the Hanseatic soldiers who had fought here. He remembered the details of the aftermath of the battle that his father had told him when he was young as if he had heard them yesterday. The bodies of soldiers from both armies had lain together on the green fields, staining the grass red. Broken artillery pieces were scattered throughout the battlefield. But the moment in the story that had really stuck to Gottfried's mind was the image of the tattered, muddy, and bloody flag of the Hanseatic League lying alongside an equally battered and dirtied flag of Drusselstein. At such a young age, that image had already informed him that war and death did not discriminate between nations and peoples; dead was dead no matter your country of birth or even which country you fought for in the War of the Double Alliance.

"Ten thousand lives were lost that day, Gottfried," the jaded Joachim Neuer had told young Gottfried. "Ten thousand dreams and hopes and ambitions, all sacrificed on the altar of war because of the cockiness of our own leaders and their desire to save our nation from ruin." And it wasn't only the casualties, the victims of the Battle of the Plains of the Merchants who had had to give up their dreams and ambitions. Joachim Neuer had always dreamed of being a shoemaker like his father and his grandfather before him, and he had wanted to pass down the knowledge of his craft to his son Gottfried, but the war had forced both Neuers to the battlefields where there was simply no chance for the tradecraft to be passed down from father to son. And Gottfried himself wanted to be a good husband to his wife and a good father to his child, whom his wife was still carrying in her womb when Gottfried had been conscripted into the army. But something had changed within him in the three years that he had been fighting, and he now found himself wishing—no, more like wanting—for combat. Three years of constant marching and the occasional skirmish or even pitched battle had been enough to get Gottfried used to that kind of life, and he now found himself being afraid of what lay in store for him as he returned to civilian life—

A musket shot suddenly rang out of nowhere, and a small lump of grass and soil flew into the air to Gottfried's right. His reaction was immediate and instinctive. He jumped off of the rock where he had been sitting on and knelt down behind it. He lifted the musket in his hands up to his shoulder and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. Gottfried then remembered that the musket had been deliberately unloaded so that there was no chance of Gottfried accidentally discharging the weapon into a Drusselsteiner body part while he was informing them of the Treaty of Stettin. He then saw the dirty and bloody handkerchief tied to the ramrod, and another idea formed in his mind.

"Wait!" Gottfried called out. He lifted his empty musket over his head with both arms and began waving around the white handkerchief. "The war is over! Peace has been negotiated!" he shouted.

Gottfried then stepped out of the cover of the large boulder and into plain sight. "The war is over," he repeated. "Peace has been negotiated."

Gottfried found himself standing in front of a large old stone farm house. The door had been bolted shut and the windows boarded up except for one near the roof. Three men, all wearing the black uniforms of the Drusselsteiner Army, lay dead in front of the house, blood seeping out of the large and ragged wounds in their chests and backs. Gottfried prayed to God that he would not join those hapless soldiers on the ground and in the afterlife.

A head popped out of the farm house's open window. "Neuer?" the man called out.

Gottfried had to blink twice to make sure that he wasn't seeing things. "Schwarz?" he shouted back.

"Hold on, man," Schwarz said. "I'll open the door. Get in here before the Drussis know you're here too!"

Gottfried ran for the door to the farm house, where he waited for Schwarz to open it. When the heavy wooden doors finally cracked open, Schwarz said to him, "Get in! Get in! Get in!"

Gottfried positively dashed into the farmhouse before collapsing into a pile of unswept hay as Schwarz closed the door. " _Gott im Himmel_ , Neuer," he said. "I almost killed you back there. I thought you were one of those damned Drussis!"

"I'm wearing blue, not black, Schwarz," Gottfried replied. He then stood up from the pile of hay he had used to cushion his landing, punched Schwarz in the arm, and said, "It's damn good to see you again, _Gefreiter_ , and alive at that. I thought you had been killed in Gimmelshtump."

" _Soldat_ , I have survived the Siege of Teeneruusberg," Schwarz replied. "A poxy little village like Gimmelshtump isn't going to be the death of me."

Alois Schwarz, despite being ten years older, was one of the privileged few whom Gottfried Neuer could call his friend, and Schwarz was his closest friend of all. Osterlicher by birth and offered Hanseatic citizenship in an effort to retain his loyalty, Schwarz was one of the many foreign officers hired by the Hanseatic Army to train and lead its soldiers in the War of the Double Alliance. Alois Schwarz was capable and tenacious, qualities which were so often lacking in many of the other foreign officers in the Hanseatic Army, but despite those qualities, Schwarz had never been promoted higher than _Gefreiter_ , or corporal. Schwarz had already confided that he had not accepted the promotions that had been offered to him because a higher rank might mean that he would no longer be able to fight on the front with the infantry, but Neuer suspected that Schwarz was merely covering up the fact that their superiors did not want Schwarz in their tightly-knit "inner circle".

"If you survived Gimmelshtump, Schwarz, then where have you been for the past ten months?" Gottfried finally managed to ask the _Gefreiter_.

"I was captured at the end of the battle, _Soldat_ ," Schwarz replied. "I only managed to escape three weeks ago, after I took advantage of the falling star to draw the guards' notice and flee the Drussis' prison."

"A falling star? What are you talking about, Schwarz?" Neuer asked. "Are you losing your mind?"

"No, no, I'm serious!" Schwarz said. "There really was a falling star! And I saw it fall near this very farmhouse! I tracked down the falling star for three weeks, even while the Drussis were tracking _me_ down. I only crossed the border yesterday, and those three Drussis you saw in front of the farm followed me across. Good thing the owners of this place left behind lots of guns and ammunition. I got those Drussis good just before sunrise. They were like headless chickens once I shot the first of them! You should have been there to see it, Neuer. It was the first time I had managed to shoot three people so quickly! I had to run around the farmhouse picking up muskets and making those Drussis think that I had friends with me!"

"You killed those Drussis outside the farmhouse just this morning, _Gefreiter_?" Neuer asked disbelievingly. "Schwarz, the war is over! It has been since three days ago! The kings of the Hansa and Corona have already negotiated a peace treaty to put an end to this war. We're back to where we started. Nobody gains or loses territory. Everything will be as it was before the declaration of war."

A dumbfounded look soon crossed Schwarz's face. His mouth hung open in surprise and shock as he absorbed the news that the conflict that he had been fighting for the majority of his adult life had finally come to an end. "But… but what about my discovery?" he stammered. "The fallen star? The knowledge?"

"Seriously, Schwarz, what has happened to you in your time with the Drussis?" Neuer asked. "What are you talking about now? The knowledge from the fallen star? Have you become an occultist during your time in captivity?"

"No, Neuer, just—follow me!" Schwarz almost shouted. He then immediately headed for the farmhouse's back door, leaving Neuer no choice but to follow him. If the _Gefreiter_ had indeed been driven crazy by his time as a captive of the Drussis, then Neuer had to keep an eye on him lest Schwarz try to attack him. He hadn't survived the War of the Double Alliance just to be killed by a madman who had once been a compatriot and a friend. Neuer took out the bayonet sheathed in his belt to protect himself in case Schwarz tried to attack him.

"It's just here, the knowledge, I know it," Schwarz mumbled as he dug through the hay bales stacked in the back of the farmhouse. "I hid it underneath here in case the Drussis got me, but they didn't, and now I can't find it! Where the hell is the knowledge hidden? Where—Aha! I have found it!" Schwarz exclaimed as he tossed aside entire bales with only his arms. Schwarz had always been a very strong man, stronger than even a pair of oxen. "Here it is, Neuer. The knowledge," he said to the other soldier as he shoved aside more bales to reveal a large black box the size of a furniture chest.

Neuer reached out to touch the box. It was made of a material that was smooth to the touch and sounded hollow when he knocked his fist against it. "This isn't a fallen star, Schwarz," was the first thing that came to his mind. That was how strange the object before him was to him.

"I know that it's not, Neuer, Schwarz nodded. "This box was inside the fallen star itself. And the knowledge that I keep talking about is inside this box."

"What is it, exactly?" Neuer asked. "The knowledge, I mean."

"It would have most certainly turned the tide of the war to the Hansa's favor," Schwarz replied. "But since, according to you, the war is now over, I see no immediate use for it. But if war shall come again to the Hansa, then it would prove to be very beneficial to the league. This will turn the Hanseatic League into the most powerful and most feared nation on this continent." Having said that, Schwarz took hold of the box's lid and heaved it open.

Gottfried Neuer didn't know what he was expecting to see inside the box of knowledge. A glowing ball or orb, perhaps, but certainly not the dozens of large scrolls of parchment and thick books that he actually saw inside the box. He took one of the scrolls and unfurled it. It showed a diagram for some kind of weapon for the common soldier, but that was all that he understood before everything became too technical and complicated for him to understand. "What in the world is this knowledge supposed to be, Schwarz?" he asked.

"I already told you, Neuer. This will turn the Hansa into the most powerful nation on the continent, and possibly even the world. Imagine, Neuer," Schwarz said, "an army whose soldiers can fire at least a dozen rounds at the enemy without ever needing to reload even once. Such an army would be unstoppable! And that army could be the Hanseatic Army, if only we can bring this knowledge to Konigsberg!"

Neuer rolled up the parchment that he had taken from the box and took another roll. This one appeared to show what looked to be a thin and slender artillery cannon protected by large metal plates on all sides. Yet even though he understood nothing to the thin writing scribbled all over the parchment and the diagram itself, Neuer slowly began to see just what exactly Schwarz had seen in these drawings that had convinced the _Gefreiter_ that he was sitting on a treasure trove of knowledge. "This… This is going to revolutionize warfare as we know it," he muttered.

"Indeed, _Soldat_ , indeed," Schwarz nodded. "And by the grace of God, this knowledge has been bestowed upon the Hanseatic League. All of this will help return our beloved nation to her old glory! In fact, it could even take her to newer and greater glories!"

"Yes, Schwarz, that is all well and good," Neuer said, "but how are we even supposed to take this box to Konigsberg? I know that you are a strong man, _Gefreiter_ , but surely carrying this box on your back all the way to Konigsberg is going to break your back all the same?"

"We're in luck once again, Neuer," Schwarz said. "The owners of this farm left behind a few wagons for us to use to carry the knowledge to Konigsberg. I'm telling you, man, God really must want the Hansa to have this knowledge. Everything has fallen in place for us to carry the knowledge to our leaders. If only they knew how to use it, take advantage of it."

Neuer and Schwarz found the wagon that the _Gefreiter_ had mentioned hidden in the stables beside the farmhouse, along with two horses which they hitched onto the wagon. Schwarz took out a few carrots and apples and used one to get the horses moving, and then once the wagon was on the move, Schwarz steered the horses onto the King's Highway, the road connecting the fifteen founding cities of the Hanseatic League with each other and to their nation's capital, Konigsberg. At the rate that the wagon was moving, they would arrive at Konigsberg by nightfall.

"Schwarz, would you mind if you dropped me off at my house along the way?" Neuer asked.

"Sure, Neuer," Schwarz replied. "Where do you happen to live, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Just in Saargarden," Neuer said. "It's right on the King's Road; you don't have to get off it at all. It's just a mile or so away from Konigsberg's limits."

"I know," Schwarz nodded. "We all marched past it on our way to Drusselstein, _ja_?"

They spent the rest of the journey talking about how Schwarz had managed to escape captivity in Drusselstein, along with what had happened in the Hanseatic Army in the past ten months. Finally, Gottfried found himself growing tired and sleepy, and he yawned, closed his eyes, and fell asleep almost immediately. By the time that Schwarz shook him awake, Neuer noticed that night had already fallen, and that they were already in Saargarden. Schwarz had even stopped the wagon right in front of Neuer's house.

"I think this is your stop, _Soldat_ ," Schwarz told him.

"Thank you for the ride, _Gefreiter_ ," Neuer said. He jumped out of the wagon and looked around his hometown before Schwarz handed him his empty musket back, the white handkerchief still tied to the ramrod. "I know that we're supposed to return our weapons to the barracks upon returning from the front," Schwarz said to him, "but you might as well keep it. With the knowledge that we have, those muskets could very well become obsolete, and your gun could become a museum piece."

"Good luck with the knowledge, _Gefreiter_ ," Gottfried said as they shook hands.

"And good luck to you too, _Soldat_ ," Schwarz repeated. He then urged the horses forward, and the wagon moved slowly onwards towards Konigsberg.

Gottfried Neuer turned around to face his house, a small two-story building made of stone and wood. It had been home to the Neuers since their ancestors had been awarded this land in Saargarden by the King of the Hansa for providing good quality shoes and boots to the army. Today, the Neuers' shoe shop had been closed for three years already, as Gottfried had been conscripted into the Hanseatic Army then in an attempt to reinforce the soldiers besieging Teeneruusberg during their ill-fated adventure into Drusselstein. Gottfried had always intended to reopen the shoe shop if he survived the war and returned to Saargarden with his arms and his legs, but Neuer had the feeling that included in the knowledge that Schwarz had found was some sort of machine that could produce more shoes than a single cobbler like him could. Maybe he could get a machine for his own shop, but then how much would a single machine cost? Perhaps if he could ask Schwarz about it…

Gottfried knocked on the door to his house. He heard someone rushing to the door and then unbolting the locks. Finally, the door opened, and Gottfried was finally face to face with his wife again. "Inge," he muttered.

"Götz," Ingrid Neuer muttered back as she covered her mouth in surprise, and then her emotions overcame her and she rushed forward to Gottfried and embraced him. "Oh, thank God you're alive, Götz!" she said through her tears.

"I know, Inge, I know," Gottfried whispered to her. "And I could say the same about you. How is our child?"

"We have a daughter, Götz," Ingrid said with a smile. She then untangled herself from Gottfried's arms and called out to someone in the house. A young girl, barely three years old, ran out of the house and towards Ingrid. "Her name is Selene," Ingrid told Gottfried. "She was born under the full moon, so I thought it was appropriate that I named her after the moon itself."

Gottfried squatted down so that he could look at the girl, his daughter, in the eye. She had his shiny black hair and Ingrid's golden brown eyes. The girl suddenly scurried behind Ingrid's skirt when Gottfried drew near her, but Ingrid was immediately there to calm her down. "He's your father, Selene," she told the girl. "Say hello to your Poppa!"

Selene peeked out from behind Inge's skirt to look at Gottfried. Finally, she ventured out of the protection of her mother's clothing and walked slowly towards Gottfried. "Poppa?" she asked.

"Yes," Gottfried nodded. "It's Poppa."

Selene hesitated a little, as if trying to digest what the man in front of her had just told her. And then she ran to Gottfried and hugged him with a shout of "Poppa!" Gottfried returned his daughter's hug. He didn't even bother with fighting back the tears that were welling in his eyes. Forget the Hanseatic League; this was why Gottfried Neuer had fought. His wife and his daughter, his family; the two most important people in his life. Nothing else except they mattered to him now.

He was home.

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A/N: Since this is the first chapter in a new work, I would really appreciate it if you could leave a review or a comment telling me what you think and so I know how you think I should go with this. Oh, and if you do like it, do leave a follow or a favorite to keep yourself up to date. It only takes a few minutes of your time to do, and it lets me know that people do indeed read my works. Thanks! - GR


	2. The Price of Peace

"Presenting His Royal Majesty, King Agnarr of Arendelle!"

"Welcome to my humble domain, Your Majesty," the Duke of Iuvavum said once the King of Arendelle and his personal retinue had paid their respects to the Duke, who was their host for tonight. "I am glad that we are finally able to meet under these more auspicious times."

"The pleasure is mine, Your Majesty," the young King of Arendelle replied. "And I really do hope that this Continental Council will usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for us, our children, and our children's children."

One of the conditions agreed upon by all parties with the signing of the Treaty of Stettin to put an end to the War of the Double Alliance was the establishment of a Continental Council which would serve as the final arbiter to all future disputes between the countries of Europa. It was hoped by all the nations that through the Continental Council, which would put to a vote by all member states any issue or dispute brought before it, would put an end to the waging of warfare on the continent.

"Yes, Your Majesty, that is all that we have hoped for," the Duke of Iuvavum agreed. "It is most regrettable that we always have to fight our wars and spill our blood before we remember how much more infinitely valuable peace is. That is why I have agreed to the formation of the Continental Council, and why I have also agreed, as Duke of Iuvavum, to join my nation with this esteemed organization. I wish only that my children and my grandchildren will know only peace in their time."

"Yes, Your Majesty, is that not the dream?" Agnarr said. He already had a child of his own, a daughter named Elsa, and his wife Queen Iduna was pregnant when Agnarr had left for Iuvavum, and she was due to deliver the child sometime within this month. Agnarr wondered if Iduna had already given birth even as he was participating in the birthing of a council that will hopefully put an end to all wars on the continent. Agnarr truly hoped that the Continental Council would be the key to bringing peace to Europa.

Elsa had been born four years ago, at around the same time that the War of the Double Alliance had been reignited following surprise Hanseatic offensives on all fronts. Thankfully, a sea separated Arendelle from the rest of the continent and the chaos and destruction wrought by the war, meaning that the people of Arendelle had never seen the war fought on their very own doorsteps. They did have to endure the blockade of the Hanseatic Navy that had been established since Arendelle's entry into the war on Drusselstein's side, but both blockade runners and privateers ensured that a slow trickle of supplies kept flowing to the country's ports. Elsa was still too young to know about or even be aware of the War of the Double Alliance, and she hadn't even experienced the hardships that the citizens of Arendelle had, and Agnarr's second child would only hear of the War of the Double Alliance as something from the past along with, he hoped, the concept of war itself. He would let them learn about war, the reasons why it was fought and the consequences that came along with it, but Agnarr had no intention whatsoever of allowing war to engulf Arendelle ever again.

"Your Majesty, if you wish, you can stay in the grand ballroom while we wait for the rest of our esteemed guests to arrive," the Duke of Iuvavum suggested as another delegation to the Continental Council came to his palace. "Now, if you will excuse me, Your Majesty, I shall greet the Emperor of Karosha and his delegation."

"The Emperor of Karosha?" Marshal Skjelbred, commander of all of the Arendelleske armies during the War of the Double Alliance and one of the members of the Arendelleske delegation, sneered as soon as they were out of earshot of the Duke of Iuvavum and his servants. "Is that lunatic baron still calling that last strip of land that he still holds an empire?" he asked. "How deluded can he be to think that?"

"Come off it, Per," General Jarstein, another veteran of the War of the Double Alliance, said in response to Skjelbred's statements. "You're still mad at him because you lost an eye fighting at his side against the Osman invaders, aren't you?"

"Rune, I am never not mad that I lost an eye trying to help that madman reclaim his lost 'empire'," Skjelbred insisted. "And I don't remember you being so quick to go to the Emperor's defense when he ordered your cavalry troop to charge that Mamluk square."

"Who defines what is an empire and what isn't, anyway?" Baron Ødegaard, the third and youngest member of the Arendelleske delegation, asked in response to the conversation between his elder peers. "Is it to do with the land itself, the throne and the crown, or the man who sits on the throne and wears the crown?"

"If you ask me, Lord Ødegaard, I say that an empire has both power and the history and territory to back up that power," Marshal Skjelbred replied. "Corona, Avalor, Alba, now those are empires, well and truly deserving of the name even if they only call themselves kingdoms right now. But Karosha is not an empire, plain and simple. No matter what they tell you or tell themselves, Karosha is not an empire and will never be an empire."

"That's funny, Per," Jarstein snorted. "It's funny that you should mention Corona along with all the other kingdoms you just brought up, and in the same breath of respect and admiration. Weren't you just telling me that one of these days you were going to take the Army and crush the Coronites yourself?"

"You are taking that statement completely out of context, Rune," Skjelbred said with a subtle hint of stubborn insistence. "Besides, it was the beer and the lutefisk talking back then. Now I am merely acknowledging that Corona, Alba, and Avalor are now the new great powers on the continent."

" _Ja_ , Per, keep telling yourself that," Jarstein mumbled as he sipped at his wine. "But _I_ know how you _really_ feel about the new great powers."

A small and somewhat hesitant cough stopped Skjelbred from replying to Jarstein's retort, and the four delegates of Arendelle turned around to look for the source of the cough. It turned out to have come from a small and scrawny man, who was surrounded on either side by a large and burly man. The small man who had coughed had gold-rimmed round spectacles perched on a large, pointed and prominent nose. The auburn hair on his head was already giving way to a grayish white hue, and the mustache on top of his upper lip had already lost the fight and was completely white. He was wearing a black uniform with gold thread in the seams and on the epaulets, and a number of large and ornate medals were pinned to his chest. A sash with a thick blue stripe in the center surrounded by thinner red stripes ran from his right shoulder to his left hip. "Excuse me, Your Majesty, but are you King Agnarr of Arendelle?" the man asked.

Agnarr exchanged looks with Skjelbred and Jarstein. It wasn't uncommon for noblemen from other countries to approach each other during formal events like the inauguration of the Continental Council to talk about matters of state like diplomacy and trade, but as Agnarr had only recently acceded to the throne of Arendelle, and this was his first time being approached by a nobleman as the sovereign of his own nation. "Yes, I am, your Majesty," Agnarr replied after receiving nods from both Skjelbred and Jarstein. "And who might you be, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Oh, apologies, Your Majesty. Forgive my forgetfulness. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Georg Friedrich, Duke of Groningen and Elector of Weselton," the man replied, bobbing his head and causing his hairpiece to flap on top of his skull, forcing Skjelbred and Jarstein to suppress their laughs with coughing fits. The two men with Georg Friedrich also bowed respectfully at Agnarr. "And allow me to introduce my fellow members of the official Weseltonian delegation to the Continental Council: Virgil, Count of Breda, and Kevin, Count of Ghent," Georg Friedrich continued. "They are both Junior Electors of Weselton."

"Forgive me, Your Highness," Agnarr said as he recognized the Duke. "I did not realize that it was you. It's been so long since I last saw you. Many years have passed since you were named Weselton's ambassador to Arendelle."

"Oh, yes, I do remember that," Georg Friedrich nodded. "It has indeed been a very long time since then."

"This is Marshal Skjelbred and General Jarstein," Agnarr said, gesturing at the officers beside him. "And this is the Baron Ødegaard, one of Arendelle's youngest general officers and commander of my very own Household Mounted Guards troop."

"A pleasure to meet you all, gentlemen," the Duke of Groningen said as he peered over the Arendelleske delegation with his spectacles. "I take it that all of you have fought in the War?" he asked.

"Of course, Your Majesty," Skjelbred nodded. "I actually led the Army that relieved the siege on one of your cities. IJssenstaat, I believe it was."

"And the people and Grand Duchy of Weselton are eternally grateful to you, your men, and the Kingdom of Arendelle for that," Georg Friedrich nodded.

"Why, thank you, Your Majesty," General Jarstein said.

"Having said that, my brother the Grand Duke would like to offer his condolences to you and your nation, Your Majesty," the Duke said to Agnarr. "You and Arendelle have lost a great and noble king in King Ragnar, may he rest in peace."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Agnarr nodded. "The Grand Duke's condolences are well received. And allow me to offer my condolences to the Grand Duke for his wife the Grand Duchess, may she rest in peace."

"Oh, yes," the Duke said wistfully. "My brother Joachim Georg is still in mourning for the loss of the Grand Duchess, but my brother the Grand Duke knows that he still has a nation to run and govern, state affairs that which he must take care of."

"Amen," Ødegaard nodded, which elicited a firm shake of the head from Jarstein, although Ødegaard did not see it. The baron was indeed still young, and did not yet understand diplomatic protocols. But he could still at least be taught how to behave properly, unlike some other nobles that Jarstein knew.

"Ah, but while we are on the subject," the Duke of Groningen said, "there is one particular matter of state which I would like to discuss with you, Your Majesty. Specifically, the matter of trade."

"Yes, what about it?" Agnarr asked.

"As you know, Your Majesty, there is an official and binding treaty of trade between our two nations," the Duke explained. "Arendelle sends coal, stone, and ice to Weselton, and in exchange Weselton sends lumber and grain to Arendelle. This has been proven to be a most beneficial trade agreement between our two nations because we provide each other with resources that our countries need. However, the trade agreement itself is only valid for as long as your father, may he rest in peace with all the angels and saints, and my brother sit upon their respective thrones."

"Yes, yes, Your Majesty, I do believe that I remember this treaty," Agnarr nodded, deep in thought.

"And I was wondering if perhaps, we can renew this treaty," the Duke asked. "After all, Arendelle still needs Weseltonian wood and grain, and we need Arendelleske stone and coal. So it should only be logical that trade between our two nations should continue, yes?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, yes, it does," Agnarr replied. "And it is such a coincidence as well because I have been planning to seek you out in order to renew our trade agreement while we wait for the rest of the delegates to arrive. Shall we discuss the terms of this new treaty now or would you like to do it during the interludes of the Congress?"

"Perhaps it would be best to do it during the interludes," the Duke agreed. "And I don't know about you, Your Majesty, but I perform my best negotiating when I am lightly infused with wines and spirits."

"Ah, while you might think yourself a great negotiator, Your Majesty, I have been dealing with raising my daughter," Agnarr replied with a smooth smile. "Believe me, I have learned a thing or two about the art of negotiating."

Suddenly, a loud roar erupted just outside the palace walls. Two large shadows then passed over the courtyard before the ground shook and rumbled. "Ah, that must be the delegation from Berk Island," the Duke of Groningen said. "They always know how to make an entrance. Then again, if we all had dragons then perhaps all of us would be performing grand entrances like that."

"Indeed, Your Majesty," Agnarr nodded.

* * *

"This is an outrage! This is unacceptable!" the King of the Hanseatic League thundered as he finished reading the terms and conditions that were to be imposed upon the Hansa with the formation of the Continental Council. "Thirty million marks in war reparations, and that is just for Drusselstein! Increased tariffs on the Hansa's imports from Drusselstein, and you are also ordering us to disband both our army and our navy!?"

"But that is both only logical and what both of our nations deserve," the President of the Republic of Drusselstein calmly said in reply. "We must rid ourselves of the ability to wage war on other nations if we are to maintain the peace that we have all fought long and hard to achieve, and in order to do that we must get rid of our armies."

"'Our armies'? Our armies!? Don't you mean only the Hanseatic Army?" the King of the Hansa retorted. "I see no mention anywhere in this treaty of Corona, Alba, Avalor, the Muscovites, the Karoshans, or even tiny little Drusselstein disbanding their armies as well. Only the Hansa must disband our army!"

"Perhaps, Your Majesty, if you hadn't used your army to invade the sovereign territory of Drusselstein and started this whole war then there would be no need at all to disband your precious army," the President of Drusselstein sneered.

"How dare you speak to me like that, you nasty wretched little poxy peasant!" the King of the Hansa shouted. "Drusselstein would be nothing without the Hansa! You, _Your Excellency_ , would be nothing without the Hansa! You are a dirty little insignificant peasant from Gimmelshtump who has no idea how to wield the power and authority given to him by other dirty little peasants who don't know any better!"

"Gentlemen!" the Duke of Iuvavum shouted over the King of the Hansa's ramblings, speaking for the first time since the first meeting of the Continental Council had been convened. "Your Majesty, Your Excellency, you both have had more than enough time to negotiate and iron out any undesirable terms in the treaty. Now that the treaty has been brought before the Continental Council, it is no longer subject to change unless the Continental Council unanimously votes to veto it. And as you can see, the Continental Council has unanimously decided to accept the treaty. Now, may we please get back to business?"

"You will regret this," the King of the Hansa said, pointing a finger at each and every single member of every delegation in the first ever session of the Continental Council. "All of you! You will all regret this day! You will all regret the day that you humiliated, eviscerated, and emasculated the Hanseatic League like this!"

"Something on your mind, Your Majesty?" General Jarstein asked King Agnarr when the latter hesitated in affixing his signature onto the Treaty of Iuvavum, the more permanent successor to the Treaty of Stettin and the first ever treaty mediated by the Continental Council. "You are holding up the line, if I may say so, Your Majesty," Jarstein added.

"May I confide something in you, General?" Agnarr said as he put his quill pen down on the parchment and signed the treaty.

"If that is your wish, Your Majesty."

"General, I fear that we are actually not taking the first steps towards achieving peace in this continent," Agnarr said softly so that only Jarstein could hear. "This treaty which we have just signed is not truly a peace treaty but merely an armistice, I fear. I do not know when this armistice which we have all decided to call a 'peace treaty' will end, but I do know that it will end, no matter what the Continental Council does. But what I truly fear, Rune, is that this armistice will end when we have all passed on and our children are left to deal with it. Oh, Rune, I hope that it never happens, but that would be wishful thinking. We both know that the Hansa does not forgive easily, nor does it forget that easily either. I fear that it is only a matter of time before the Hansa rears its ugly head up again, disarmament or not."

Right at that moment, Agnarr's batman entered the hall where the Continental Council had held its first ever meeting. He had come in through one of the side door specifically meant for servants to enter and leave the hall without disturbing the nobles. "Your Majesty," he said quietly as he approached Agnarr. "Queen Iduna would like you to have this." He then handed over a single crocus flower.

Agnarr accepted the flower and laid a hand on his batman's shoulder. "Thank you, Anders," he said. Anders nodded his head and bowed before leaving through the same way that he came in. Agnarr then looked at the crocus in his hand and sighed. Iduna had finally given birth, and both she and the child had survived. And now, because she had sent him the crocus, Agnarr knew that he now had a second daughter. Had Iduna sent him a heather then that would mean that she had given birth to a son. But Agnarr didn't really mind having another daughter. He would have another child to take care of and dote over.

And then his thoughts turned once again to the Treaty of Iuvavum and the King of the Hansa's threats against the rest of the Continental Council, and Agnarr prayed that this time his gut feeling was wrong, and that the Continental Council would truly bring peace to the continent.

* * *

A/N: As always, reviews and comments are highly appreciated. It only takes a few minutes of your time, and it lets me know what you think of what I've written down. Thank you. — GR


	3. The Rise of the Snow Queen

_**Eighteen years later**_

Eighteen years after the creation of the Continental Council, peace had finally descended upon the continent. Or so it would seem. There were always disputes between the various nations on the continent, but the Continental Council had served to mediate between all of these disputes, just as the signatories had intended. Even Drusselstein and the Hanseatic League, the two nations generally acknowledged to be the ones closest to sparking yet another war on the continent, submitted their dispute between rights to territorial waters to the Continental Council, and surprisingly enough the Hansa accepted the Council's decision (which was in favor of Drusselstein) without much of a fight.

Peace had finally settled over the continent.

But as with all things, this peace wouldn't last. And the first signs of this peace being fractured happened by a most strange circumstance. In the first days of August 1839, winter suddenly descended upon the northern regions of the continent. Nobody had an explanation for it. It was very much the consensus of the time that yesterday was very much a warm summer day, and then the next day the season had suddenly turned cold, very cold. The nations which had shores on the Baltic Sea were the ones most affected by the sudden winter, but none of them were quite as affected as the Hanseatic League, something which came about because of the combination of having the longest Baltic shoreline and being the southernmost nation around the Baltic Sea. There, winter literally descended upon the entire nation, wreaking havoc across all the land. Harvests were disrupted, villages and cities were buried under inches of snow, and the people began to come down with various sicknesses. Nowhere in the Hansa was spared, not even the various petty lords and barons who had sworn fealty to the kings whose realms made up the entirety of the Hanseatic League.

One such petty noble whose estate had been deeply affected by the sudden winter was Zsoltan von und zu Freiburg, Freiherr (a Hanseatic peerage equivalent to a baron) of Freiburg. His barony, centered around Schloss Freiburg and the city that had grown around it, was one of the smaller baronies in the Hansa, and yet it was one of the bigger producers of foodstuffs in the eastern part of the League. The Freiburgs had held the barony since the 12th century when it was given to their ancestors as a reward for leading the merchant kingdom's levies against the Asian steppe hordes. The von und zu Freiburg line could trace a near-unbroken line of succession from that 12th century general down to the latest rulers, Zsoltan and his only son Istvan. At the moment, Zsoltan was staring out at his snowed-in estate from the massive window in his study, providing him a stunning panorama of the white snowscape in front of him.

Freiherr Zsoltan sipped at the snifter of brandy in his hand, and then he barked out to a servant, "Throw some more wood into the fireplace, will you, Balasz?" The servant nodded and he immediately tossed some blocks of firewood into the hearth, which he stoked with a poker to get the fire burning hotter. Zsoltan watched the servant at work before he turned back to face the window and watch the snow fall ever thicker on his estate, which made him shake his head. "Winter in August!" he spat out. "What kind of nonsense is this? What is the world coming to?"

Winter had come early to the Hanseatic League. In fact, it had come five months too early, catching every single person living in the Hansa by surprise. Winter just didn't simply come in August. August was right around the time when the peasants prepared the fields for the coming harvest, the merchants awaited the arrival of their largest ships and their precious cargos of trade goods, and the nobles camped off to the seaside towns to take in the cool salt air. The sudden winter had changed all that though. The seaside towns were now too cold and stormy for the nobles to even think about staying there for more than a day. The merchants were now getting worried that their ships wouldn't be able to sail into the harbor without the winds pushing them hard against the piers and docks, and the harvests had to be taken in much earlier than usual before the cold ruined them all. But despite their best efforts there were reports, some unconfirmed and others coming from sources that Freiherr Zsoltan considered trustworthy, that many farms and estates in the country had lost between forty to fifty percent of their crop yields. A few estates were even claiming and reporting losses of over seventy percent of their crops and livestock due to the sudden winter. Freiherr Zsoltan's farms had been lucky though; they had managed to harvest and salvage over seventy percent of their produce before the cold had rendered the rest worthless.

And then there were the floods. For a brief period in the middle of August, the winter lifted and the sun seemed to grow a little bit stronger, melting the snows that had been deposited all over the country. The meltwaters seeped through to the rivers, seeking the fastest way possible to the sea. Entire farms drowned underneath the floods, and towns were inundated. Even the capital of the Hanseatic League, Konigsberg, didn't escape. People claimed that the King's Road was ankle-deep in water right up to Saargarden, and as one got closer to the river and the sea, the floodwaters rose right up to people's calves and knees. Over two hundred people, most of them peasant workers and villagers, were drowned in the floods.

The floods had receded by now, but the winter had returned with renewed ferocity, and as the days got closer to actual winter, it was only growing colder in the Hansa. Already the lengthened winter was claiming more victims; the Freiburg estate alone had lost cattle, pigs, sheep, and chickens; and two of the Freiherr's riding horses had been found frozen to death in their stables just yesterday. Even a couple of the Freiherr's farmhands and servants had fallen ill with colds and influenzas. The Freiherr had allowed the sick ones to stay at their homes to recuperate, not that there was much work to do now that the whole estate was covered in snow. Zsoltan shook his head at the waste of it all.

There was a soft knock on the door of the Freiherr's study. "Come!" he commanded, and his batman walked in through the double mahogany doors. "Ah, Ferenc!" the Freiherr said. "How goes the horses today?"

"I've just come back from the stables, Freiherr," Ferenc replied. "Rehoboam and the mares are surviving as best as they can, but Aloysius and Concordia both seem to be taking a turn for the worse. I've already ordered fires to be lit in the stables, but I don't think Aloysius will make it beyond the week, Freiherr."

"Ah, that's such a shame," Zsoltan shook his head once again. Aloysius was a fast white steed who was perhaps the Freiherr's favorite hunting horse out of all his stables. The loss of Aloysius would be like losing a brother. "I must pay him a visit soon, before he passes on."

"Of course, Freiherr," Ferenc nodded. "Oh, and a letter just arrived," he added, remembering. "A messenger delivered it from the town. It's from your son."

"Ah, finally!" Zsoltan said, his mood lifting a bit as he clapped his hands and turned away from the windows. "I knew that I had remembered to tell Istvan to write back as soon as he had arrived in Arendelle."

"Sir, if I may be so bold as to suggest that perhaps the mail clippers had been delayed in their arrival by the sudden winter storms and all of the other ships trying to get into port?" Ferenc said. He then reached into his leather pouch and retrieved a thick parchment envelope. There was a wax seal on the flap stamped with the seal of the Freiburg family. The batman handed the envelope to the Freiherr.

"Thank you, Ferenc," Zsoltan said, accepting the letter.

"Is there anything else I can do for the Freiherr?"

"No, Ferenc, I don't think there is. You are dismissed." Then he thought about it and he called him back. "On second thought, Ferenc, I think you've spent enough time in the cold. Why don't you stay here and warm yourself by the fireplace?"

"Why, thank you, sir," Ferenc said with a grateful smile, and he immediately stood in front of the fireplace beside the servant who had thrown the firewood and stoked the flames earlier. Meanwhile, the Freiherr sat down on his chair behind the oak table that was the centerpiece of his study, and he tore open the envelope and took out the sheets of parchment inside. He laid the sheets flat on his desk and moved the lamp closer so that he could read the letter.

 _Dear Father,_

 _I hope that this letter finds you and Mother well. I apologize for the lateness of my letter with regards to your last statement before my departure, but things have really kicked off over here in Arendelle. I do not know if there will be enough room in these sheets to tell you of what has happened and to try to explain everything to you, but I shall do my best to try._

 _I have arrived safely in Arendelle on the 21st of July, and I have barely had time to report to His Lordship the Ambassador before we had to attend the coronation of the new Queen of Arendelle, Her Majesty Queen Elsa. The coronation itself was a simple affair, although the young Queen seemed to be in a bit of a rush and appeared to want to get the ceremony done and over with. The Queen also looked scared throughout the coronation, which I can only ascribe to nerves. She has already had years to think about her Duties and Responsibilities to her Nation, and if I may be honest, Father, I have had much the same thoughts with regards to our estates. I fear for when the time comes for me to take up the mantle of Freiherr of Freiburg._

 _Anyway, Father, the story that I am about to tell you is about to become very strange and amazing indeed. Almost unbelievable, but I swear on our Family's honor that everything that I tell you from this point on is all true without any fabrications or alterations. It turns out that the young Queen of Arendelle has the power to control and manipulate ice and snow, and appears to have had that power for some time, seeing as she was not surprised when she unleashed her powers upon her unsuspecting guests. I profess to not understanding much of the events that hath Transpired, but from hearsay it appears that the Queen's sister, the heiress presumptive of Arendelle, had announced her betrothal and impending marriage to a young Prince of the Southern Isles, a Marriage to which the Queen did not agree. To this the Queen Expressed her displeasure and disapproval with an un-Provoked attack of ice and snow. The Queen then Fled, seemingly afraid to face the Repercussions of her actions. In her Flight, the Queen plunged the entirety of her Nation under a cold and sudden winter, a winter which has wreaked Havock on all the land._

 _Forgive me if the details become less believable at this point, Father. I am not sure if I truly believe them myself, even after having seen these events transpire right before my eyes. Most of these things transpired outside of Ragnarsborg, and His Lordship the Ambassador had ordered all of us confined to our quarters until such time that the winter lifted or the Queen of Arendelle was found. But it appears that Grand Duke Georg Friedrich of Weselton, owing to his fear of the Queen's apparently magical powers, has ordered for the immediate arrest of the Queen, although why the Court of Arendelle should follow the orders of a foreign nobleman I do not know. And the same Prince of the Southern Isles whom claimed his betrothal to the Queen's sister apparently committed an act of Perfidy and Regicide by attempting to murder both the Queen's sister and the Queen herself. I cannot claim to know what was going on in the Prince's mind, Father, as I truly cannot comprehend the actions that he had taken. The Prince of the Southern Isles knew that he was never going to take the throne of his father (barring Unforeseen circumstances) and, had He played his cards right, could have made himself Prince Consort of Arendelle, but instead he chose the Path of regicide. I stress that I simply cannot understand the Prince's thoughts during these days._

 _Now my tale returns to terra firma, Father, for what I am about to tell you, I have witnessed for myself, along with the rest of His Lordship the Ambassador's staff. From our quarters we were able to witness the formation of a winter storm, a Blizzard, around the Queen of Arendelle, but somehow the Prince of the Southern Isles was able to walk through the Maelstrom. From across the Frozen harbor we were able to hear the Prince claim that the Queen had murdered her sister by sending ice straight into her heart. It was a pitiful sight to see, Father, a Queen with such unimaginable power brought to her knees by mere words. The Prince drew his sword and prepared to slay the Queen where she knelt in Grief, and then her sister suddenly appeared to stay the Prince's blade, and she turned into a statue of ice right in front of our eyes. Even to this day I cannot believe that it had actually happened. The frozen Princess appeared to have performed the ultimate sacrifice to save her sister the Queen, but only a few minutes later the ice fell off and the Princess verily returned to her old self before our eyes. The Arendelleske claim that it was an act of true love, of the Princess saving her sister from certain death, that thawed the Princess's frozen heart and returned her to life. But His Lordship the Ambassador believes that the Queen turned her own sister into ice to protect herself from the murderous Prince, and frankly, Father, I am inclined to believe him, and so does the rest of the staff._

 _As you would expect, Father, Arendelle has now cut off diplomatic relations with both Weselton and the Southern Isles, although I expect that relations would return to normal once both the Duchy and the Kingdom have made the appropriate reparations to Arendelle. In the meantime, Arendelle has turned to the Hanseatic League as their new trading partner, although I have to admit that the quality of our coal is most definitely inferior to that of the Southern Isles. At least this means that we are no longer solely dependent on our colonies and our most unbalanced trade deals with Drusselstein and the other Council nations to sustain our economy._

 _It appears that the people of Arendelle have silently accepted the fact that their Queen has been given (or blessed, as some of their more esoteric brethren would claim) with the power to manipulate ice, snow, even Winter itself. Her Majesty Queen Elsa of Arendelle has even taken to staging weekly ice-skating events in the capital, something which has pleased her people much. I am all right, Father, do not worry, and do tell Mother not to worry about me. But if only it didn't feel like winter in summer here! I do not know whether to wear my winter clothes or my summer clothes; it is a truly strange conundrum to face._

 _I do wish that you and Mother will be able to pay a visit to the wonderful nation that is Arendelle, Father. It is a truly friendly and welcoming Place, and if you come prepared, the Queen's ice events will verily bring a smile to your face and warm your heart._

 _Yours Sincerely,  
_ _Your loving son  
_ _Istvan_

"Ah, Istvan, such a storyteller you are," Zsoltan von und zu Freiburg chuckled with proud amazement once he had finally managed to read his son's letter in full. Istvan did have a way with words, the elder Freiburg had to admit.

"What was that again, Freiherr?" Ferenc, the Freiherr's batman, asked.

"What? Oh, it's nothing. Nothing that you should be concerned about anyway, Ferenc," Zsoltan said. "Ferenc, my son has just written back to me from his new posting in Arendelle. I would very much like to write back to him. And if you do not mind, I would like to write my letter in private."

"Of course, Freiherr. As you wish." Ferenc bowed his head, and then he motioned for the other servant to get out of the office with him. "Thank you for letting us stay, even if it was just for a while, Freiherr," Ferenc said before he closed the study's doors.

Zsoltan took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then he reached into his desk and took out a fresh sheet of parchment which he laid down on top of the table. He took his pen, dipped it into the ink, and then he began to write.

 _My Dear Son Istvan,_

 _How nice it is to hear from you after your travels. It pleases my heart that you have reached Arendelle safe and without incident. I have passed on your love and regards to your Mother, and she asks me to give hers to you._

 _These are truly wonderful and interesting tales that you have brought to my attention from Arendelle, Istvan. If these stories are true, and the new Queen of Arendelle truly has the power to control and manipulate the winter then that makes her the first monarch on this Continent to have magical powers since the High Wendish Kings of old. This is a truly interesting development, my son. Also, if Arendelle is very much willing to take our coal in place of Weseltonian coal then they must be in dire need of the stuff indeed._

 _I am truly glad that you have arrived safely in Arendelle, Istvan. And perhaps your mother and I will take you up on your offer to pay the kingdom a visit, but not today, I am afraid. Winter has suddenly descended upon the Hanseatic League, and our fields and orchards in our estates have been covered by a thick layer of snow. Do not worry, my son; by the Grace of God we were able to bring in much of our harvests before the cold ruined it. I cannot the same for some of our friends' estates though, I am afraid. Rupprecht zu Bamberg's estate was inundated by the River Lech, and Isaac Steiner's flocks were simply found frozen to death the other morning as I write this letter._

 _I am telling you, Istvan, this sudden winter is causing chaos upon our country like you cannot imagine. I have not been to Konigsberg recently, but our friends who have been there have all advised me not to go. There is discontent among the populace. The citizens of Konigsberg, having been pampered by living in such close proximity to our King, are very fickle and are very prone to voicing their displeasure loudly, and this winter really has brought out the worst in them. Our friends have advised me to stay away from Konigsberg until the rowdy natives have quieted down, unless of course if it is about a truly urgent and important matter._

 _I do not wish to speak ill of Arendelle's new monarch, Istvan; I hope that you understand this. But I have to say that the manifestation of Queen Elsa's ice powers happening so quickly before this winter suddenly fell upon the Hansa and our neighbors feels like a very troubling coincidence indeed, if it is even a coincidence. I really do hope that Queen Elsa has nothing to do with this sudden winter, because if she does, the people will demand that the King and the League take action against her, and we simply cannot afford to take such an action. The Continental Council will come down upon us like a collapsing brickhouse, and we will be humiliated even further than the Treaty of Stettin ever will._

 _I wish for good luck and the eternal Grace of God to smile upon you during your time in Arendelle, Istvan. Know that your mother and I are always praying for your safety. And if you can, Istvan, please pray for all of us over here as well. Sentiments against the monarchy and the aristocracy have been on the rise once again after the King's ineptitude with dealing with this sudden winter. Not that I can claim to be able to do a better job at this than the King, but you know what I mean, my son._

 _I have taken great pride in you, Istvan, and I know that you will become a great Freiherr when the time comes for you take control of our estates. And know that I will always, always be proud of you._

 _Sincerely,  
_ _Your Loving Father_

Zsoltan von und zu Freiburg read over his letter twice before he was finally satisfied that he had put to paper everything that he had wanted to say to his son. He folded the parchment three times, put it into an envelope, and then he sealed the flap with wax. The Freiherr then stamped his seal on the still-warm wax to ensure that it would not be opened or in any way tampered with until it got to its recipient. He then stood up, walked out of his study, and called out for a servant. "Make sure that this gets onto the first mail clipper out of here," he commanded the servant, who nodded his head enthusiastically, proud of having been entrusted this important task by his Freiherr, and then he took one of the horses for the servants' use and rode out to the town of Freiburg to deliver the Freiherr's letter.

* * *

A/N: As always, leave a review or a comment about what you think of my story. It only takes a few minutes of your time and it lets me know if you like my story (or not). Thank you. – GR


	4. The Trial of Prince Hans

"Bring forth the accused!"

Two grenadiers of the Army of the Southern Isles, burly and muscular men whose massive shoulders strained the seams of their crimson uniforms to their limits, walked into the dark candle-lit chamber. Between them they carried, or more accurately dragged, a leaner young man with bright red hair and thick long sideburns going all the way down to his jawline. His white uniform was stained and dirtied by coal dust, mud, and even dried spatters of blood. The grenadiers hauled the young man to the middle of the chamber and forced him to his knees, and then they attached a chain between his cuffs and a metal loop on the floor to prevent him from standing up. Once they were sure that the young man was secured, the grenadiers walked out of the chamber without a word.

"The Star Chamber of the Kingdom of the Southern Isles is now in session," the same sharp female voice who had called for the accused continued. "The Councilors of the Star Chamber present tonight are Lady Toksvig, Lord Eriksen, Lord Poulsen, Lord Delaney, Lord Schmeichel the Elder, Lord Schmeichel the Younger, and Lord Billing. Lady Toksvig will be presiding as judge, and the case is the Kingdom of the Southern Isles versus Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, Prince of the House of Westergaard, Count of Svendborg, and Earl of Nakskov on the charges of attempted regicide against Queen Elsa of the Kingdom of Arendelle. Now, before we start," Lady Toksvig said, "is there anything that the accused would like to say to the Star Chamber?"

"Is there anything I would like to say?" Hans repeated in a slurred voice. "Is there anything I want to say?" he said again, and then he looked up at the gathered lords of the Star Chamber with glazed and unfocused green eyes. "Am I now actually allowed to say anything to any of you? Or will my father order my words stricken from the records anyway?"

"Now, now, your Highness, there is no need to be sarcastic," Lady Toksvig replied. "The Star Chamber only wishes to hear the side of the accused first before we proceed to our judgment."

"Your judgment?" That statement seemed to stir Hans back to reality. "Your judgment?" he repeated harshly. "Don't you mean my father's judgment? Because isn't that the reason why I'm still here in the Star Chamber instead of rotting in the dungeons like he really wants?"

"Well, then, your Highness, perhaps you shouldn't have tried to kill the Queen of Arendelle if you didn't want to be brought before the Star Chamber in the first place," Lady Toksvig retorted.

"How many times do I have to tell you? I didn't try to kill Queen Elsa!" Hans shouted.

"Oh, yes, yes, of course you didn't," Lord Eriksen said, speaking for the first time. "You didn't try to cut down Queen Elsa with your sword, and you also didn't leave Princess Anna alone in a cold room to freeze to death. Of course you couldn't have done all those things despite a large body of witnesses claiming that you did. Now, your Highness, pray tell us, what were you thinking when you committed those acts? Why did you do it? Why _would_ you do it?"

"That is exactly my point!" Hans exclaimed, thrusting his opened hands forward. "I have no reason at all to do it! No reason whatsoever! I loved Princess Anna; I _love_ Princess Anna. I had proposed marriage to her and she had accepted it!"

"Yes, of course, and according to eyewitness testimonies, Queen Elsa denied her permission for you and Princess Anna to marry," Lady Toksvig countered. "And that, my dear, frankly, is great enough motivation for you, let alone anyone, to attempt regicide. She was an obstacle to your ambitions of claiming a throne and therefore she had to go."

"No, that's not true! You have to believe me, Aunt Sandra!" Hans pleaded. "I didn't plan to kill Queen Elsa. I had no plans like that whatsoever! My body was moving of its own accord during those moments that people said I tried to kill the Queen and her sister. I tried to stop myself, but I was powerless! I felt like I had been possessed by an evil spirit! This is witchcraft, I tell you. Witchcraft!"

"Ah, yes, the witches made you do it," Lord Eriksen sneered in derision. "And let me guess? It was the fairies and the trolls who locked Princess Anna in that room, is that correct?"

"But I'm telling you, what I say is the truth!" Hans said. "Why won't you believe me, Christian?"

"It's not that we don't believe you," Eriksen replied. "It's just that wherever you go, trouble seems to follow you. And by trouble, I mean diplomatic incidents. And now you have brought back the mother of all diplomatic incidents, regicide."

"But I didn't kill the Queen! Anna stopped the blade from cutting down Elsa—"

"It doesn't matter whether or not you actually killed the Queen!" Lady Toksvig suddenly shouted. "Attempted or not, regicide is still regicide. You have no idea how lucky you are to still be alive to face the Star Chamber after all that you did," she continued in a calmer voice. "You have no idea how many favors your father pulled, how many concessions he made just in order for Arendelle to not make a fuss about this whole thing and bring it to the attention of the Continental Council."

"Really, Lady Toksvig?" Hans asked with more than a hint of sarcasm dripping from his voice. "My father did all that just for me? I find that hard to believe. My father has hated me from the moment that I drew my very first breath. Are you sure that it was him who negotiated for my return back to the Southern Isles, or did Mother have to talk him into doing it?"

"The Star Chamber will not accept such slanderous statements, and as presiding judge I move that the Prince's previous statements be stricken from the record on account of their slanderous nature," Lady Toksvig said, and she pounded her gavel before anyone else had even spoken to either second the motion or refuse it.

"But how can my statements be slanderous if they are true, at least from my point of view?" Hans asked.

Lady Toksvig ignored Hans' latest statement. Instead, she said, "Once again I shall ask the accused this: is there anything that you would like to say before the Star Chamber reaches our verdict?"

Hans frowned, and then he set his jaw tightly and squared his shoulders, at least as much as his chains would allow him. He then looked at each of the lords of the Star Chamber in the eye and said, "I, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, do solemnly swear that everything that I state after this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I swear this on the honor of the House of Westergaard. So it was, so it is, and so it shall be."

Lady Toksvig shook her head and sighed. "If you will please kindly continue with your statement, your Highness," she said in a bored tone.

"I, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, love Princess Anna of Arendelle," Hans said. "I truly love her. I do. I would never do anything to hurt her or harm her. And she loves me, or at least she did before all of this happened. I would never do anything to lose her love, the one thing that I have never had as a prince. I knew that I would never ever get my father's love because I was, I am his unwanted son. I was born the thirteenth son of King Christian of the Southern Isles, at a time when he and my mother actually desired a daughter. My father never loved me; he saw me only as yet another rival to my brother Crown Prince Jannik's claim to the throne of the Southern Isles, and because he was superstitious he saw my being the thirteenth son as being incredibly unlucky. And Mother, much as she says that she loves me, she never actually shows it when she should. If she did truly love me then she wouldn't stand for my father treating me like trash. That is why, as soon as I was of age, I wanted to leave the Southern Isles at the first opportunity.

"I embarked on a grand tour of the continent as soon as I was of age," Hans continued. "However, no matter where I went, it seemed as if there was simply no place where I ever felt truly accepted. I was an outsider no matter where I went; there was never a place where I really felt welcome. That is, until I arrived at the Kingdom of Arendelle and met Princess Anna. It was love at first sight; I knew it was, I know it is, and I know it to be. And I know, I _know_ , that Princess Anna was similarly besotted. I proposed marriage to her at the evening reception of her sister's coronation, and Princess Anna readily accepted it.

"And then Queen Elsa revealed her ice powers for the whole continent to see, and through circumstances which I did not personally witness, she shot a bolt of ice into Anna's heart. Anna was told that only an act of true love would stop the ice in her heart from freezing her solid, and there I saw my chance to prove my love for her and perform the act of true that was freezing her heart. But as my lips moved to touch hers, I was struck dumb. I do not remember anything between the moment I made to kiss Anna and the moment that I found myself standing on the deck of a ship in the middle of Arendelle's harbor, and by that time Anna was looking at me with loathing and disdain, and she punched me into the water immediately after."

"Excuse me, your Highness," Lady Toksvig said, raising her hand. "Let me get one thing clear. According to your testimony, you were, as you said, struck dumb right at the moment before you attempted to kiss Princess Anna. You claim to not remember anything from that event to when the princess punched you into the harbor. Would you care to elaborate about this?"

"What do you want me to say?" Hans asked back. "That I am making this up? No. I will not say that because that is not true. I truly tried to save Princess Anna, but I was unable to do so because some sort of trickery or sorcery overtook me and rendered me unable to remember what happened in those crucial moments. I did not try to kill Anna or her sister! I did not! You have to believe me. A sorcerer used to me to commit regicide, and if you shall find me guilty then you are letting the true would-be murderers walk free! You cannot condemn me for something I did not willfully do!"

The Star Chamber remained unmoved by Hans' pleas. "Unfortunately, your Highness, since the Star Chamber has long established that there is no such thing as witchcraft or sorcery, you cannot submit a charge of witchcraft to the Star Chamber for judgment," Lady Toksvig explained coolly. "So if you wish to accuse anyone of witchcraft then do not do it in front of the Star Chamber. Now that the testimony of the accused has been received, does the Star Chamber have any questions for the accused?"

The rest of the Star Chamber remained silent, and Lady Toksvig took this as a collective no. "Very well then. The Star Chamber is now ready to reach a verdict," she said. "Lords, please state your verdicts for the record. Lord Eriksen?"

"I, Christian, Duke of Middelfart, find the accused–"

There was a loud thud as the door to the Star Chamber suddenly swung open and crashed violently against the wall. Everyone in the Star Chamber, even Prince Hans, turned around to look at the new arrival. He was a tall, muscular, well-built man with thick brown hair, a full beard, and dark blue eyes. He wore the outlandishly garish crimson uniform of the Army of the Kingdom of the Southern Isles, complete with gold thread, medals, and sashes. A red cape hung from his shoulders all the way down to the calves of his riding boots. He walked with the swagger of confidence to the point of arrogance, someone who thought very highly of himself with little regard for what anyone else thought of him.

"Sorry I'm late," he said without any hint of actual contrition. "I have just come from the King's Counsel to bring the Star Chamber the news that the King has decided upon the fate of the accused."

Lady Toksvig sighed heavily and, with conscious effort to not roll her eyes at the man's effrontery, said, "The Star Chamber recognizes Lord Bendtner, Duke of Rosenborg and Commander of the Royal Arsenal of the Southern Isles. Now, Lord Bendtner, pray tell us His Majesty's decision with regards to the accused."

Lord Bendtner walked into the Star Chamber, sweeping his cloak at Prince Hans' face with all possible disrespect intended. "His Majesty King Christian of the Southern Isles, Tenth of His Name, through the Grace of God, long may he reign, called for me upon receiving news that the Star Chamber has been tasked to reaching a verdict for the accused," he said. With another grand sweep of his cloak, he took his seat below Lady Toksvig.

"His Majesty the King clearly understands the great sensitivity and gravity of the case brought before the Star Chamber," Bendtner continued. "Inasmuch as His Majesty the King has decided that this matter must be dealt with swiftly, His Majesty the King wishes that the Star Chamber will not make too big of a spectacle of the case of his wayward son. I hope you all understand what he means by this. This is very much a tragic affair, but His Majesty the King hopes that it will also be a forgettable one, one that the next generation will never learn about."

Silence descended upon the Star Chamber as they pondered the words that Lord Bendtner had just given them. It was uncommon, but not unheard of, for the King of the Southern Isles to push the Star Chamber, or at least certain members of it, to vote for a specific verdict. And today it appeared as if the King had summoned Lord Bendtner to sway him and the rest of the Star Chamber to vote for a quiet resolution to the unsavory diplomatic incident between the Southern Isles and Arendelle.

"So, has the Star Chamber reached a verdict?" Lady Toksvig asked after a protracted silence.

"Yes, we have," Lord Eriksen nodded.

"Very well then. Lords, please state your vote for the record."

"Christian, Lord Eriksen, the Duke of Middelfart, finds the accused guilty of the charge of attempted regicide," Lord Eriksen said.

"Yussuf, Lord Poulsen, the Duke of Odense, finds the accused guilty."

"Thomas, Lord Delaney, the Duke of Fredriksborg, finds the accused guilty."

"Peter, Lord Schmeichel, Duke of Aarhus and Baron Gladsaxe, finds the accused guilty of the charges against him."

"Kasper, Lord Schmeichel, Count of Kolding, finds the accused guilty."

"Philip, Lord Billing, the Count of Esbjerg, finds the accused guilty of all charges."

"And I, Nicklas, Lord Bendtner, Duke of Rosenborg and Commander of the Royal Arsenal of the Southern Isles, find the accused guilty," Lord Bendtner announced loudly and pompously.

Lady Toksvig sighed and shook her head as she reached for her gavel. "The Star Chamber has spoken," she said. "The Star Chamber finds Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, Prince of the House of Westergaard, Count of Svendborg and Earl of Nakskov guilty of attempted regicide against the Queen of the Kingdom of Arendelle and her sister. The Star Chamber sentences the accused to _reclusion perpetua_ in the Isle of Horses. There he shall spend his life sentence shoveling manure and night soil from the stables for use in the castle fireplaces and furnaces. So it was, so it is, so it shall be." Lady Toksvig pounded the gavel on the table twice to confirm and codify the Star Chamber's verdict.

"No!" Prince Hans cried out. "You can't put me away! I didn't do it! I didn't do anything! I swear on my life! I was overcome by dark magic! I didn't try to kill Anna or the Queen! You have to believe me!"

"Guards! Take this regicidal filth away from my sight!" Lord Bendtner shouted, and the same grenadiers who escorted Prince Hans into the Star Chamber went into the room to drag him out. Meanwhile, the disgraced prince continued pleading for his case even as it fell on deaf ears. "You have to believe me!" Hans said. "I would never do the things you accuse me of having done! You have the wrong man! You are putting the wrong man behind bars! The real murderers are still out there!" he shouted as he was carried away by the grenadiers.

"Oh, it is truly such a shame to see a nice young man with such potential throw away his life, his future like this," Lady Toksvig muttered sadly as she shook her head in disappointment.

"You really thought that Hans was a nice man, milady?" Lord Bendtner asked, or rather scoffed. "Hans Westergaard is a rotten apple, and always has been. I've known him since he was six, milady. I've never seen such a petty and hateful child trapped in a man's body."

"And I suppose you have the evidence to prove your claims, my lord?" Lady Toksvig asked loftily from her judges' perch above Bendtner.

"You needed proof, milady? It was right in front of you all along," Bendtner replied. "You saw how he tried to sway us with tales of his love for the princess and his claims of black magic seizing his body. He knew that he was in an inescapable situation and yet he still tried to find his way out of it. I for one am glad that His Majesty the King has finally seen fit to reign in his thirteenth son. Thirteenth sons have never been anything but bad luck for their families. The sooner that Hans Westergaard is forgotten by the people of the Southern Isles, the better."

The grenadiers hauled Hans through the dark and cold stone halls lit inadequately by thin torches in iron brackets before finally emerging into a stable. They led Hans to a carriage made out of wrought iron and wood with tiny barred windows. "In you go!" one of the grenadiers said as they practically threw Hans into the carriage. The same grenadier then locked the doors of the carriage before Hans could attempt to escape. "To the Isle of Horses he goes!" the second grenadier told the driver of the carriage, who complied with the order with a silent and curt nod, and then the driver whipped his reins to get the horses moving.

Inside the carriage, Prince Hans of the Southern Isles began to grab fistfuls of hay from the floor of the carriage and bundled them around his body to give him even a small measure of warmth against the strange winter cold in the middle of the Southern Isles' summer.


End file.
